


i'd promise you anything for another shot at life

by jacksmannequin



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, might be slightly ooc at times but hey, ryan just wants love, shane is in france and he's a math major, soulmate au where whatever you write on your skin appears on your soulmate's skin too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 19:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18666970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksmannequin/pseuds/jacksmannequin
Summary: Ryan used to think his soulmate was dead, or younger than 19. That theory proved itself to be wrong when he started noticing sometimes his hands got smudged with red ink even when he hadn’t touched a pen the whole day. Sporadically a shopping list would appear on his arm. He woke up with a flower in blue marker on his cheek once, and that was a bitch to get rid of.That was roughly when he realized his soulmate was very much alive and well, had a tendency to write formulas between their fingers at 4 in the morning, and was blatantly ignoring him.





	i'd promise you anything for another shot at life

**Author's Note:**

> soulmate au in which once you turn 19 you gain the ability to have whatever you write on your own skin appear on your soulmate's skin too!
> 
> their ages are kinda all over the place.  
> i deliberately decided to make sara, keith, and kelsey french in this for plot reasons  
> the kpop song mentioned is hot potato by nflying  
> title from disloyal order of water buffaloes by fall out boy
> 
> thanks for reading.

Ryan should have known living with two roommates who already found their soulmate wasn’t going to be exactly a comforting experience. Much less if said roommates were each other’s soulmates. Much less if they were married.  
  
It had been so easy for them. Zach woke up the day of his 19th birthday, wrote the exact words _oh fuck hi i’m zach_ on his forearm, waited ten minutes, got a _oh fuck hi i’m eugene_ back, they met up, started making out in the middle of the street five minutes later, and that was it.  
  
Zach swears up and down it wasn’t him who jumped on Eugene in front of six people at a bus stop but talking to them for three seconds is enough to realize who’s the type to do what.  
  
Ryan has always been a firm believer in soulmates. It’s a timeless system, a bit flawed maybe, but it’s in place for a reason, and that’s because it works.  
  
The good outweighs the bad, and yeah, there are exceptions and mistakes and potholes to avoid. Sometimes sexualities don’t match. Sometimes there’s an age gap and they’re not able to communicate for years. That’s what they are, though; exceptions that, in his eyes, prove the rule.  
  
Why date prematurely someone you’re not sure is your soulmate when you could wait and be settled for life?  
  
He knows it works because everyone he’s ever met has proved to him it does. His parents started communicating in college and have been together ever since. His roommates got married two months after they first met and they’re happy. His sister has been in a relationship for six years.  
  
His grandparents are nearing sixty five years together and he has never heard them argue in his life.  
  
He has always thought of it as the only way to find true love ever since he was a child and when he grew up all he wanted was just to reach the age of 19 and finally write something to them. Find them and just get the perfect love story he’s always wanted.  
  
Eventually when he did, he never got an answer back.  
  
He tried multiple times, used to write something, anything, every day, but his soulmate never even acknowledged him.  
  
He used to think they were dead, or younger than 19. That theory proved itself to be wrong when he started noticing sometimes his hands got smudged with red ink even when he hadn’t touched a pen the whole day. Sporadically a shopping list would appear on his arm. He woke up with a flower in blue marker on his cheek once, and that was a bitch to get rid of.  
  
That was roughly when he realized his soulmate was very much alive and well, had a tendency to write formulas between their fingers at 4 in the morning, and was blatantly ignoring him.  
  
“I just don’t know what I did wrong,” Ryan tells Eugene in the middle of yet another soulmate rant. “It’s been almost a year. Maybe it’s actually a girl and she’s a lesbian and she hates me.“  
  
“So I gather no answer yet?” Eugene asks quietly without looking up from his phone.  
  
“No.” Ryan frowns, looking at his arm. While he wasn’t paying attention a sentence appeared on his skin. “What the fuck is this?”  
  
Eugene finally looks up and glances at Ryan, leaning towards his arm.  
  
“It looks Korean?”  
  
“It is Korean,” Eugene confirms, a confused expression on his face. “Whoever they are, they have trash handwriting in Hangul.”  
  
“Maybe he’s Korean and doesn’t speak English?” Ryan asks, hopeful.  
  
“Their grocery lists are in English.” He shakes his head. “When did you start assuming they’re a he?”  
  
“Wishful thinking,” Ryan says with a shrug. “And his handwriting is terrible in English too, so it can’t be a girl.”  
  
“So that’s your detective work. Sounds logical,” Eugene says with a monotone voice, but Ryan picks up the sarcasm anyway. “Zach has a cute handwriting and he definitely has a dick.”  
  
“Shut up. He’d better be a he. You know I’m gay. It would be embarrassing.”  
  
“He’s not answering anyway,” Eugene points out.  
  
Ryan sighs and leans back into the couch, defeated. “I know. Whatever.”  
  
He stares at the Korean writing on his arm for a couple of seconds, irritated. Usually when he thinks about him, it’s always with a sense of longing, like something’s missing from his heart.  
  
Right now, though, he just feels sort of angry.  
  
He gets up from the couch on a whim and picks up a pen.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Let’s see how your stupid math test goes without your stupid formulas on your hands,” he mutters under his breath as he crosses them out from his fingers.  
  
_fucking study for once_ , he adds on his palm when he’s done.  
  
When he sits down again, Eugene’s laughing.  
  
“God, you’re so petty.”  
  
“Fucking asshole,” he says to no one. “At least acknowledge my existence if you really have to use my whole fucking body like a cheat sheet. I hope he fails.”  
  
“You know he could write them again, right?”  
  
“I’ll cross them out again.” Ryan picks up the pen and starts doodling on his arm. “I hope he likes going out with dicks on his skin.”  
  
“The downside to that is you’re gonna go out with dicks on your skin too,” Eugene points out with a grin.  
  
“That’s a price I’ll happily pay.” He scoffs. “I hate this.”  
  
“You don’t need a soulmate to be happy, you know.”  
  
Ryan closes his eyes and throws his head back, abandoning the pen on his legs.  
  
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re married.”  
  
“That’s beside the point.” Eugene sighs. “It’s not that important, Ryan. People live without their soulmates all the time. You’re too worked up about this.”  
  
“It isn’t beside the point at all.” Ryan takes the pen again and starts mindlessly putting down small lines on his skin. “I don’t think you’d say the same thing if you didn’t have Zach.”  
  
“Maybe. But also if you remember I’m one year older than him. I’ve lived without him for one year before he reached out. That’s roughly the time you’ve been able to write to him.”  
  
“Yeah, but he wasn’t ignoring you,” Ryan says bitterly. “I would be content with an explanation at least. It just makes me feel like shit.”  
  
He looks up, noticing a smile formed on Eugene’s face.  
  
“What’s that?” he asks, trying to look at his hand.  
  
Eugene hides it behind his back, trying to dial the smile back. “Nothing.”  
  
“Zach’s bored in class again and he’s sketching on his skin,” Ryan guesses, though he’s practically sure of it.  
  
Eugene doesn’t confirm but he knows that’s what he was smiling at, so he huffs out a sigh and backs off.  
  
“What is it this time? Roses again?”  
  
“He moved on to sunflowers,” Eugene finally says, almost making Ryan smile.  
  
“That’s cute.”  
  
“Yeah,” Eugene agrees, moving his hand from hiding and looking at it.  
  
The sunflower is more detailed now and there’s a small heart next to it. A couple of seconds later new lines start appearing.  
  
It’s weird how when that happens he starts feeling like he’s intruding. Zach isn’t even in the apartment, but somehow being there feels like an invasion of privacy, like he’s seeing something intimate he isn’t supposed to take part in.  
  
Eugene isn’t really paying attention to him anymore so he gets up from the couch and stands still for a second, playing with the pen between his fingers.  
  
“I have an essay to finish,” he says eventually, nodding towards his own room.  
  
Eugene nods, lost in thought. “Have fun.”  
  
“Sure.” Ryan rolls his eyes and gets out of the room, sure Eugene is gonna go back to staring at his arm in roughly five seconds.  
  
He loves them, really. They’re amazing people and perfect roommates, and if anything he’s glad Eugene didn’t move out when he met Zach.  
  
He just can’t help being jealous sometimes. It’s in moments like these that he wishes his soulmate could be like Zach. Or even just someone who wanted anything to do with him.  
  
He sits at his desk, realizing he actually has an essay to write, but gets lost in thought for a second, his eyes stuck on the Korean writing he still has on display on his forearm. He has no idea what it means, and even if he did understand the language there’s a high chance he wouldn’t recognize the meaning through the horrible handwriting anyway. The more he looks at it, the less sense it makes to him.  
  
He almost jumps in his chair when he sees new lines are forming in the spot under the signs.  
  
It looks like it’s just more Hangul in the same handwriting, but slightly more legible. He peeks at it, confused, then picks up his phone and launches Google Translate. He doesn’t actually know what he’s doing but it doesn’t hurt to try, does it?  
  
He takes a picture of his arm, feeling immensely stupid, but then the camera actually recognizes it thanks to some miracle and he almost laughs when he reads the translation.  
  
_I’m a hot potato_ _  
__A famous man_  
  
“What?” he says out loud, a small smile on his lips.  
  
His enthusiasm is slightly dampened, though, when he googles it and what comes up is a kpop song. Why is his soulmate writing lyrics about potatoes on his arm?  
  
His curiosity piqued, he plays the video on YouTube and ends up watching it till the end, surprising himself when he actually enjoys it.  
  
Without thinking it over, he picks up a ballpoint pen from the desk.  
  
_i don’t know shit about kpop but i googled it and i’m gonna need more potato songs now_  
  
He waits for a couple of seconds, irrationally hoping for a reply. When it doesn’t come, he sighs and drops the pen, disappointed in himself for even believing he would actually reach out.  
  
He opens up his laptop and gets to work. If his heart slightly sinks when he finds himself looking up the song again, he tries his best to mask the disappointment.

  
  
***

  
  
“Which one of you sons of bitches drew dicks on my fucking skin?” Shane says in a voice that sounds more like a screech, making his two roommates jump on the spot. “Keith.”  
  
“I didn’t do anything,” Keith replies in English, his accent slightly noticeable. He raises his hands in the air. “Ask Sara.”  
  
Sara’s eyes immediately become alarmed as she shakes her head and answers in French. “I’m innocent, you know that.”  
  
Shane snorts. “I know you would never do something like that. What I do know is that these,” he shows her his arm, “were written by your koreaboo ass.”  
  
Sara immediately freezes on the spot, feeling caught. “It’s a song. It’s cute.”  
  
“I don’t care about it, whatever it says.” Shane sighs. “But the dicks.”  
  
“Well, I didn’t do those.” She frowns. “And it’s about potatoes.”  
  
“I didn’t either,” Keith adds his two cents. “What’s that on the palm of your hand?”  
  
Shane turns his hand upside down and glances at it, frowning when he sees it.  
  
_fucking study for once_  
  
“Oh,” he says, realization dawning on him. “My soulmate.”  
  
“Well, there you go,” Sara says, glad Shane forgot to be mad at her for the lyrics. “Maybe if you actually replied to him –”  
  
“No,” Shane interrupts her, firm. “And you know why. So stop.”  
  
“One bad experience doesn’t invalidate everything else,” Keith mutters.  
  
Sara nods. “I wouldn’t exactly reduce it to a bad experience but he’s right, you know.”  
  
“I said stop, so shut up before I call Kelsey and tell her you cheated on her.”  
  
“Like she’d believe you,” Sara echoes. “But fine. If that’s what you want.”  
  
They’ve had this conversation so many times now but Shane won’t budge. That doesn’t stop them from trying though.  
  
“Can I write another line of the song on you?” Sara asks out of nowhere, a pen between her fingers and a smile on her lips, because she knows Shane can’t resist her.  
  
“Ugh.” Shane sighs. “Okay. Whatever. Can’t be worse than this.”  
  
Sara lets out a squeal and grabs his arm. The pen tickles his skin as she draws the characters on him, but his mind is elsewhere.  
  
“You’re a hot potato, Shane baby,“ she says once she’s done and then lets his arm go. Shane cringes mentally at the nickname but figures trying to make her stop saying it is not worth it anymore.  
  
“Is that a compliment?” he asks, but then instantly regrets it. “No, ignore that. I don’t care. I gotta get ready for class.”  
  
“My first class is at ten,” Keith says with a grin. “Go have fun.”  
  
“Stupid hoe,” Shane swears under his breath as he walks out of the room with even more ink on his skin than when he entered.  
  
“What’s a hoe?” he hears Sara ask in French.  
  
His room is a mess, but luckily he finds what he’s looking for pretty quickly. He picks up the long sleeved shirt and inspects it until he’s sure there aren’t any stains or anything. As he takes off the one he’s wearing, his eyes fall on his arm, where he notices another sentence appeared under the lyrics Sara wrote on his skin. His chest still bare, he peeks at it with a frown.  
  
_i don’t know shit about kpop but i googled it and i'm gonna need more potato songs now_  
  
He sighs, feeling vaguely guilty. He wishes he’d just drop it, because it’s getting harder and harder to ignore him. When one day he started getting messages all over his arms, he knew it wasn’t gonna end well. He doesn’t believe in soulmates, and he has good reason to do so, but his – Ryan, that’s what he said his name was – is nothing short of resilient.  
  
He promised himself he wasn’t going to fall for it. When he finally put his parents’ money to use and fled to France to study, he swore he wasn’t going to let anything distract him. Or trap him into something that wasn’t going to have any real outcome. Soulmates don’t work, he’s known it through all of his life, and when what made him leave ended up being the last straw, he never looked back once. He wasn’t going to do it now.  
  
He ignores the message and puts the shirt on, making sure it covers all the doodles on his arms. Ryan must be pissed today, he thinks, and then shakes his head. It’s not his business to care. Luckily nothing peeks out of the fabric, so he greets his roommates goodbye and gets out of the house.

  
  
***

  
  
“You’re still on that?”  
  
“Yes,” Ryan says as he mindlessly scratches the back of his hand with a pen.  
  
“Honestly, you should give up.” Zach sits next to him on the bed carefully, a concerned glance in his eyes. “I don’t think he’ll ever answer.”  
  
“Mind your business, Zach,” he sighs, drawing a stick figure on his fingers.  
  
“I’m serious,” he says, scooting closer to him. “You’re only hurting yourself.”  
  
“Maybe I am,” he concedes, wetting his lips with his tongue as he squints his eyes to give hair to the figure. “What’s the issue? I’ll be alone anyway, might as well feel something while I exist.”  
  
“You want to feel pain?”  
  
“Art is always better than a blank sheet.”  
  
“Not if the drawing sucks.”  
  
Ryan shrugs. “The best art stems from suffering.”  
  
“That’s a load of bullshit.”  
  
“You really can’t talk when your soulmate sleeps in your bed every night and would literally take a bullet for you.”  
  
“I know maybe I don’t understand it completely,” Zach says softly, placing a hand on Ryan’s and temporarily stopping him from filling his skin with ink. “But what I do know is that you don’t deserve to waste yourself like this. A lot of people live without their soulmates. Life has a lot to offer.”  
  
“Eugene always says the same thing,” he replies bitterly. “You two really are made for each other.”  
  
Zach shakes his head and leans in to give him a hug. Ryan lets him, quietly resting his head on his shoulder as his arms hug him back.  
  
“You don’t know what’s going on in his life,” he tells him in a low voice, slowly moving his fingertips in circular motions on his back. “He might have his reasons.”  
  
“That’s not an excuse to completely ignore my existence.” Ryan closes his eyes and lets himself be soothed by his hands. “I just want to know he’s okay.”  
  
“Sometimes stuff appears on your skin, doesn’t it? I’m sure he’s fine.”  
  
Ryan nods, retreating from their embrace. His eyes land on the Korean writing he still has on his arm from a couple of weeks ago. He knows it’s stupid; he’s been showering everywhere but that specific small area of his body. It’s faded but still mostly visible, and he plans to keep it that way.  
  
It’s the first time that something that has appeared on his skin feels even remotely like an attempt to talk to him directly. He doesn’t know whether that’s accurate, or even the circumstances under which his soulmate even wrote them, but for now he’ll just keep using it as the only thing connecting them.

  
  
***  


  
Kelsey glances at Shane from the couch, momentarily tearing her eyes away from yet another episode of _Preacher_ from her Saturday night TV show marathon.  
  
“What’s happening to your arm?”  
  
“My soulmate,” he says offhandedly as he keeps scribbling equations on his notebook. “He started using me as his personal diary again like a month ago.”  
  
“Why aren’t you reading what he’s saying?” she asks, even though she’s well aware of the fact he doesn’t want to answer, just like everyone else in the apartment.  
  
“Because I don’t care.” He squints at the book and plays with the pen with his fingers for a couple of seconds, a particular passage making him struggle. “I’ll wash it off when I’m done with this.”  
  
A sigh escapes her lips. She pauses the show and crosses her legs and arms, shooting him a judgmental stare.  
  
“That’s rude as fuck.”  
  
“Why don’t you go out and join Sara and Keith like a normal person on a Saturday night instead of being on my dick all the time?”  
  
“For the same reason you’re doing homework on a Saturday night,” she counters with a straight face. “I’m antisocial.”  
  
He scowls at the sheet in front of his face. “Just leave it, goddamn.”  
  
“Whatever, Shane.” She starts the show again. “You Americans are heartless.”  
  
“That’s a pretty broad accusation to make.”  
  
When she doesn’t even give a sign of having heard his voice, he sighs and glares at the stuff he’s been writing down for the better part of the evening.  
  
“I’m going to bed.”  
  
“Yeah, bye,” she dismisses him, her eyes on the screen. “Maybe you’ll wake up more bearable.”  
  
He rolls his eyes and retreats to his room. As he slips into bed, he catches sight of the endless string of sentences on his left arm. He has a battle with his own consciousness for a long moment, until he gives up and reads it.

His handwriting is very unstable, as it’s expected when you’re writing on a non flat surface, but he finds it’s kind of endearing in its own way, with his crooked vowels and all. He uses circles instead of dots for the I’s.  
  
_i went to class today and it was fucking boring but the professor mentioned auden and then went on a tangent about lgbt literature and it made me happy :) and funeral blues is my favorite poem_ _  
_ _im sure you don’t particularly care cause i think you’re a math major or something but yeah i hope you’re okay, have a good day_  
  
Despite himself, his lips curl up in a small smile once he’s done reading. He’s not really that big on literature, but at least Ryan seems okay.  
  
He clears his throat even though there’s no one to hear his thoughts. It’s not really his problem whether he’s okay or not.  
  
He has to remind himself a couple of times before he falls asleep.

  


***

  
  
“Two sophomores ran into each other in the hallway today,” Ryan says as he types on his laptop, determined to finish yet another paper he has to hand in in a couple of days.  
  
“For what?” Eugene asks, his questions as succinct as ever.  
  
“From what I gathered they have the same birthday and wrote to each other at the same time.”  
  
“Soulmates?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Eugene gives him a worried look, but Ryan shrugs.  
  
“It’s fine. It was pretty cute, actually,” he says nonchalantly without looking up from the screen. “Gotta be nice.”  
  
“You alright?”  
  
“Yeah, sure.” He frowns at the sentence he just wrote. “Just trying to finish this quick.”  
  
Eugene nods and goes back to his book.

  
  
***

  
  
_today i saw two sophomores kiss in the hallway cause apparently they were born on the same day and turned 19 at the same time and wrote to each other while they were in the same class. it was sweet and made me smile :)_  
  
Shane smiles softly at the writing on his leg. He didn’t even notice it until he stepped into the shower, water already running on his body. He stares at it for a couple of seconds and then grabs his soap.  


  
***

  
  
“Eugene!” Ryan screams, running into their room without even knocking at five in the morning. “Wake up!”  
  
Zach is the first to open his eyes and he throws a pillow at him, hitting him in the face.  
  
“What the actual fuck, Ryan?” he yells, waking up Eugene in the process.  
  
“What’s going on,” he mutters, and it doesn’t even come out as a question as he rubs his eyes.  
  
“Ugh.” Ryan grabs the pillow and throws it back to Zach, who catches it mid air. “Your husband pisses me the fuck off.”  
  
“Shut up,” Zach snaps and hides under the covers again. “Go away.”  
  
“My soulmate replied!” he screams again, startling the both of them, only this time Eugene actually catches what’s being said and immediately sits up.  
  
“For real? What did he say? Fucking hell, come here.”  
  
He races to their bed and sits right in the middle of them like an excited kid. Even Zach sits up again and stares at him with anticipation in his face. Ryan takes his shirt off and shows them his shoulder and upper arm.  
  
_hey :)_  
  
“That smiley face,” Zach says, grinning. “You convinced him?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Ryan says. “I woke up because I had to pee but then I couldn’t sleep again so I decided I might as well get dressed for when I gotta go to class. And it was there.”  
  
“Does he even sleep?” Zach asks.  
  
Eugene gives him a smile of his own. “Go get a pen, what are you waiting for?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Ryan licks his lips and looks down. “I’m kinda scared of writing back now.”  
  
“You’ve been waiting for like a year and a half, Ry.” Eugene hugs him from behind and Zach ruffles his hair. “It’s your chance.”  
  
“Okay, I –” He takes a deep breath. “I will, uh – alone.”  
  
“We get it,” he says, freeing him from his embrace. “Now go.”  
  
Ryan takes his shirt with him and quietly leaves the room, just as Eugene leaves a kiss on Zach’s lips.

  
  
***  


  
“Which one of you did that? Oh my God. I told you I didn’t want it!” Shane screams as soon as he’s in the living room, but frowns when only Sara is there.  
  
“They’re all sleeping,” she informs him with a smile. “It’s Sunday.”  
  
Shane bites his lower lip to avoid going off on her. She probably didn’t do it. She’s the lyrics one.  
  
“One of those assholes wrote a fucking _hey_ on my shoulder while I was sleeping and Ryan took it as a greeting from me,” he says in the end, leaning against the doorframe. “I’m gonna fucking cry.”  
  
“I’m betting it was Kelsey,” she admits, pursing her lips. “I’m sorry.”  
  
He gets into the room and sits down on the couch next to her.  
  
“I’m gonna fucking kill her,” he grunts, hiding his face in his hands. Sara patiently rubs his back in sympathy.  
  
“Now if I ignore him I’m gonna pass off as even more of an asshole than I already am and I’ll hurt him.”  
  
“What if you actually had a conversation?”  
  
“I don’t believe in soulmates,” he says flatly. “You know that,”  
  
“You can be friends,” she says simply. “Tell him.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s what he wants.”  
  
“You can’t know until you ask.”  
  
Shane closes his eyes and after a long moment he finally nods.  


  
***

  
  
Ryan keeps staring at the writing on his arm.  
  
_one of my roommates actually wrote that, i'm sorry. but yeah. hi._  
  
He really thought he did something, but apparently he wasn’t even the one to actually answer. What did he expect?  
  
He stops looking at it and goes to the bathroom to take a shower.  


  
***  


  
“So, did your lover boy answer?“  
  
“Fuck you, Kelsey,” Shane snaps, his eyes firm on the TV screen. “You went behind my back.”  
  
“I only did what needed to be done.”  
  
“You had no right to do that,” he says, calmer this time. “You know why I’m here. You all know it. You really had no right.”  
  
She sits down next to him and places a hand on his shoulder. Shane jerks away from her touch, but then she repeats the motion and he doesn’t react.  
  
“You can’t keep running away from something that could change your life because you’re scared,” she says softly, her voice different from how they usually interact. “You know Ned and Ariel wouldn’t want you to.”  
  
“Don’t say their names,” he whispers, leaning into her touch despite himself.  
  
“You gotta let it go,” she tells him, pulling him into a tight embrace. “Stop feeling like you’re a magnet for disaster.”  
  
Shane exhales a ragged breath, his arms hesitantly wrapping around her torso as he rests his head on her shoulder.  
  
“Reach out.”  
  
“He hasn’t replied,” Shane murmurs on her shirt. “And I can’t give him what he wants.”  
  
“At least try.”

  
  
***

  
  
Ryan glances at his arm nervously, not feeling like paying attention to the lecture, and his stomach jumps when he sees words appearing on it. He has to look away through the window and stare at the park outside campus for a long moment, trying not to let his heart run out of its cage.  
  
_my name is shane. it’s not my roommate this time. i’m 21 and i live in france._  
  
Ryan has to bite back a disbelieving chuckle as he reads. Another couple of words appear.  
  
_i don’t think i believe in soulmates. you can try and change my mind tho._  
  
He picks up his pen from the desk, since he’s given up on taking notes about thirty minutes ago, and scribbles a reply.  
  
_that’s why the stuff on my skin always appeared during the night?_

 _  
_ _we can figure it out together._  
  
He waits patiently, his heartbeat running at a hundred miles per hour.  
  
_we can_  
  
When he smiles again, he feels like he’s on top of the world.  


  
***

  
  
“See? Was that so bad?”  
  
Shane shakes his head.  
  
“Did you give him your number yet?”  
  
Shane’s expression darkens. “I’m not giving him my number.”  
  
“Why not?” Kelsey asks. “You wanna keep writing on your skin like it’s the 60s?”  
  
“I don’t want him to get his hopes up.”  
  
“Oh, Shane.” She playfully bumps her shoulder against his arm. “You’re so naive.”

  
  
***

  
  
Shane sits on a bench, a pen in his hand and waiting for Ryan to finish the sentence. The park is crowded, but he’s used to it.  
  
_so i asked her if she could take her fucking bag off my desk and she yelled at me_  
  
_that’s funny_ _  
_ _  
_ _it’s not._ _  
_ _  
_ _it is :)_ _  
_ _  
_ _where are you?_ _  
_ _  
_ _under the eiffel tower_ _  
_ _  
_ _damn. lucky you_  
  
He smiles when those words appear, and then he realizes he just gave out to him the fact he lives in Paris without noticing.  
  
Other lines start to form and he looks at the back of his hand anxiously.  
  
_but are you like french? i just realized it’s been months and i’ve never asked_ _  
_ _  
_ _no, i’m american. i moved here. i'm doing a three year course. graduating in like three months_ _  
_ _  
_ _why did you move?_  
  
Shane sighs and hesitates before scribbling his answer.  
  
_maybe i’ll tell you another time._  


  
***

  
  
“You really haven’t heard his voice yet after all this time?” Zach asks, flipping through the channels with a bored stare while Eugene reads a book next to him.  
  
Ryan shakes his head. “He doesn’t want to.”  
  
“He’s so closed off. I still can’t believe you really got him to talk.”  
  
“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. “We talk every day. I don’t mind though.”  
  
“You don’t?” Eugene speaks up, his eyes still on the page he’s reading.  
  
“No. He’s known me personally only for like seven months. Whatever it is can wait.”  
  
“You’re his soulmate though,” Zach counters, looking at him. “He’s supposed to trust you. You only learned he lives in Paris like last month.”  
  
Ryan shrugs, a soft look in his eyes. “I’m just thankful he’s starting to open up.”

  
  
***  


  
A phone number appears on his skin one afternoon and Ryan’s heart jumps in his chest.  
  
“Shane?” he says tentatively when he sees his FaceTime call being picked up, though the screen is black, like the camera is being blocked.  
  
“Hey,” a quiet voice replies, causing Ryan’s lips to curve in a happy smile.  
  
“Your voice is pretty,” he blurts out before he can stop himself.  
  
“I didn’t know voices could be pretty.”  
  
“Yours is.”

 

  
***

  
  
“Are you gonna answer that?”  
  
Shane slides his phone even further away from him on the flat surface of the table. “No.”  
  
Keith frowns. “Why?”  
  
“It was today. Three years ago.”

His expression softens and he signals him to sit next to him. When Shane does, Keith puts an arm around his shoulder.  
  
“You should pick up.”  
  
“I’m scared I’m growing too attached,” Shane admits, looking at his hands. “I’m breaking every rule I’ve set for myself.”  
  
“I think that’s a good thing, you know?” Keith says, lightly touching his back. “You’re moving on.”  
  
“It was perfect. They’ve always been best friends, they were my best friends, and then I lost them both not even half a day after they found out they really were soulmates.” He takes a deep breath. “A system that works wouldn’t allow a death so cruel.”  
  
“I get how you feel,” Keith says softly. “It just happened. Nobody could have prevented it, certainly not the soulmate system. You can’t give up your happiness for fear of losing it. And if you do lose it, at least you can say you tried.”  
  
Shane swallows. “I’m graduating next week.”  
  
“I’m gonna miss your bighead.”  
  
“I didn’t say anything about leaving.”  
  
“You didn’t have to.”

  
  
***

  
  
“I’m gonna miss you so much,” Sara says for the tenth time, hugging him so tight he almost chokes. “Don’t go back to a shitty diet. Think of Europe as the Big Brother every time you’re about to go to McDonald’s.”  
  
“I’m a vegetarian, Sara,” he says with a weak laugh, overwhelmed by the thought of leaving them behind.  
  
When they separate, Keith pulls him into a brief hug and then leaves a pat on his shoulder. “I’m gonna miss having you wash the dishes.”  
  
He rolls his eyes. “Fuck you, Keith.”  
  
Kelsey walks up to him and pinches his cheek.  
  
“Ouch,” he whispers as she lets go.  
  
“You’re a huge idiot nerd,” she says with a big smile on her face. “And when you speak French you sound like you have a constant cold.”  
  
“When you speak English you sound like someone stuck a lemon in your throat,” he shoots back, mirroring her grin.  
  
When they hug, it’s a bit more desperate than usual.  
  
“Thank you for doing that,” he whispers in her ear. “I see why you did it now.”  
  
“You’re welcome, you dumbass,” she replies as they pull back. “Remember to FaceTime us when you’re not busy fucking.”  
  
Shane makes a face and she lets out a cackle.

  
  
***

  
  
“Do you think he’s okay?” Ryan asks Eugene, walking around the kitchen. “His phone is off and he isn’t even answering via skin.”  
  
“Via skin is such a weird thing to say,” Zach chimes in.  
  
“He’s probably tired,” Eugene offers. “Graduating isn’t exactly a walk in the park.”  
  
“Yeah, maybe.”

  
  
***

  
  
A small heart appears on his skin, and Ryan almost goes into shock.  
  
_send me your location_ _  
_ _  
_ _why?_ _  
_ _  
_ _just do it_  


  
***

  
  
“I don’t even know what you look like,” Ryan says in his phone as his heart beats faster by the minute, his eyes traveling all over the quiet street they live on. “What am I even looking for?”  
  
A couple of fingers tap on his shoulder, and he almost drops his phone to turn around.  
  
“Fuck. It’s you?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What are you so fucking tall for?”  
  
Shane starts laughing under his breath, hiding his mouth with his fingers. Ryan stares at him in disbelief.  
  
“Well, you’re a baby,” he says softly.  
  
They reach for each other’s hand at the same time and end up meeting halfway, so they intertwine their fingers and chuckle.  
  
“So I was thinking we could –”  
  
Shane brings his other hand up to his face and places a finger on his lips, making him immediately cut himself off.  
  
“I think I love you.”  
  
Ryan smiles widely, his heart almost flying inside his body.  
  
“Kiss me then.”  
  
Shane closes his eyes, pausing for a second, and when he realizes his mind is blank, he’s sure of what he wants to fill it with.  
  
Ryan brings a hand to his face and pulls him in. Their mouths brush, and Shane rests his forehead on Ryan’s, until he leans forward and their lips finally meet. A shiver runs through Ryan's spine.  
  
For the first time in both of their lives, something truly feels like coming home.


End file.
